Google Wallet for merchants: the complete guide

Google Wallet is Google's wallet app for Android phones. Like Apple Wallet on iPhone, it gathers contactless payment cards, tickets, transport cards and loyalty cards. It comes preinstalled on most recent Android phones, and otherwise installs from the Play Store.

For a merchant, the stakes are simple: your customers are split between iPhone and Android, in proportions that vary by neighbourhood and age. A digital loyalty programme only works if it covers both worlds with the same simplicity. Google Wallet is therefore the other indispensable half of the setup.

From the customer's point of view, the experience is very close: they scan your QR, tap “Add to Google Wallet”, and the card appears with your colours and their balance. Three differences are worth knowing:

• Preinstallation varies: Apple Wallet is on every iPhone without exception; Google Wallet is on most Androids, but not all, depending on the brand and age of the phone. Hence the importance of a fallback, described below.
• A Google account comes into play: the card attaches to the phone's Google account, which lets the customer find it again if they change device.
• The presentation differs slightly: each wallet has its own display templates. The balance, the reward and your messages stay visible in both cases; only the layout changes a little.

On the merchant's side, however, nothing changes: same QR code, same scan at the counter, same dashboard, and the balance updates on the customer's card after every confirmed visit. You never have to ask a customer whether they are “iPhone or Android”.

Some Android phones do not have Google Wallet, and some customers do not wish to install it. A serious solution plans for this with a web card: the loyalty card then opens in the phone's browser, with the same updated balance and the same code to show at the counter. The customer can add it to their home screen to find it in one gesture.

And for customers with no smartphone at all, with the POS connection, identification by phone number lets you credit their visits with no card at all. A good loyalty programme excludes nobody: neither the heavily equipped customers nor the others. The practical details of these special cases are covered in the FAQ.

This is the point that simplifies everything: at the counter, you display only one QR code. When a customer scans it, the page detects their phone and offers the right gesture: “Add to Apple Wallet” on iPhone, “Add to Google Wallet” on Android, web card otherwise. Your team has nothing to diagnose: the poster sorts it out by itself.

This single-gesture logic also holds for what follows: scanning visits is identical whichever card is shown. And if your till is connected, points are credited automatically at checkout, with no distinction between phones (see the POS connection page).

Three criteria for choosing your solution:

• Complete coverage: Apple Wallet, Google Wallet and a fallback web card. If even one is missing, part of your customers will be left out.
• Zero installation on the customer's side: the wallet already in the phone is enough. Any solution that imposes “its” app on your customers starts with a serious handicap.
• A real free plan to test with: nothing replaces a trial in real conditions, at the counter, with your real customers.

Digikart, a French digital loyalty card solution, ticks all three boxes: Apple Wallet and Google Wallet cards with a web fallback, no app for the customer, and a free plan with no cap on customers or duration. Enough to equip your whole customer base, Android included, in about fifteen minutes.